The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-07-09
The REFORMATION.

The messenger of Malachi's prophecy was
to be a moral and religious reformer,
preacher of righteousness. He was to pre-
pare the people of Israel for the day of the
LORDS coming to His Temple, which ID rep
resented as being deserted by him on account
of the religious indifference and hypocrisy
and wickedness of the people, by turning the
degenerate sons to the righteous ways of their
fathers who remembered the commandments
of GoD to observe them.
The time when John the Baptist appeared
as a reformer in Israel was time f.great
spiritual degeneracy and political subservi-
ENJOY. The rulers were tyrannical, the priests
were corrupt, and the people were careless
and disheartened.
"Now in the fiftieth year of the govern
ment of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Plate
was governor of Judea, and Herod tetrarch
of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch OF
Ituroea, in the high priesthood of
Annas and Oaiaphas, the word of God came
unto John the son of Zacharias, III the VII
derness. And he went forth into all the re-
gion about the Jordan, preaching the bap-
tism immersion of repentance lretorma-
ton, with remission of sins. Lake Ill. l-3.
1t was an age of transition, of uncertainty,
ton, in the wreck of sacred institutions, in
those dense clouds which were gathering
more and more darkly on the political horl-
zon, it must have seemed to many pious
jew as if the fountains of the great deep were
again being broken up. Already the sceptre
had departed from his race already
its high-priesthood was CONTEMPORARY
tempered with by Indumean tetrarchs or
Roman procurators; already the chief int1u-
ence over his degraded Sanhedrin was in the
hands of supple Herodians or willy Sadducees.
It seemed as if nothing were left for his con-
ISOLATION but an increased fidelity to Mosaic
Institutions, and deepening intensity OF
Messianic hopes. - Farrdr "The life of
CHRIST"
The cry of the faithful in the land rose to
GoD, that He would remember His holy
covenant and deliver them. They sighed
to be free from the presence of the heather,
that once more under GoD, as their only
King, with their country TO themselves,
they might serve Him without fear, in the
homage of the Temple and the rites of the
Law, Israel had long cat in darkness with
no break of light from heaven. The prom
ises seemed to tarvy. The godly sighed to
have their feet guided into the way of peace,
but no Messiah had appeared to lead them
But if the sorrows of the nation pressed on
the heart of John, 30 also did their sins. If
the SHADOW of death" thus lay on them, it
was through their own sins and degeneracy,
for COP had only forsaken them because
they had first forsaken Him. The courts of
His temple had been turned into den of
thieves; the spiritual guides of the multitude
were deceitful and deadly as the viper of the
desert; blind leaders of blind people. They
who should have been the hottest of the holy
Cons priests.-,were a scorn and derision
for their unworthiness. Nor were the
people themselves innocent, for he who was
meek and lowly in spirit denounced them a
year or two later as an evil and adulterous
generation, more hardened and hopeless
which God had cursed. But with John
there vas also a conviction that the Messiah
long expected must be near at hand.